Basketball is a ball sport in which, under organized rules,
two teams of five players each try to score points by
throwing a ball through a hoop.

It is primarily an indoor sport, played in a relatively
small playing area, called the court. The speed and grace
of the game, combined with the close proximity of the
spectators to the action, make basketball an exciting
spectator sport. It is one of the "major sports" of the
United States, and is also popular in other parts of the
world, including South America, Europe, Asia, and some
former Soviet republics.

History

Early basketball
Basketball is unusual in that it was invented by one man,
rather than evolving from a different sport. In 1891,
Dr. James Naismith, a Canadian minister on the faculty
of a college for YMCA professionals (today, Springfield
College) in Springfield, Massachusetts, sought a vigorous
indoor game to keep young men occupied during the long
New England winters. Legend has it that, after rejecting
other ideas as either too rough or poorly suited to walled-in
gymnasiums, he wrote the basic rules, and nailed a peach
basket onto the gym wall. The first official game was
played in the YMCA gymnasium on January 20, 1892. Then,
there were nine players on the court in a court just half
the size of an NBA court. "Basket ball", the name suggested
by one of his students, was popular from the beginning,
and with its early adherents being dispatched to YMCAs
throughout the United States, the game was soon played
all over the country.

Interestingly, while the YMCA was responsible for initially
developing and spreading the game, within a decade, it
discouraged the new sport, as rough play and rowdy crowds
began to detract from the YMCA's primary mission. Other
amateur sports clubs, colleges, and professional clubs
quickly filled the void. In the years before World War
I, the Amateur Athletic Union and the Intercollegiate
Athletic Association (forerunner of the NCAA) vied for
control over the rules of the game.

Basketball was originally played with a soccer ball. The
first balls made specially for basketball were brown,
and it was only in the late 1950s that Tony Hinkle, searching
for a ball that would be more visible to players and spectators
alike, introduced the orange ball that is now in common
use.

College basketball and early leagues
Naismith himself was instrumental in establishing the
college game, coaching at University of Kansas for six
years before handing the reins to renowned coach Phog
Allen. Naismith disciple Amos Alonzo Stagg brought basketball
to the University of Chicago, while Adolph Rupp, a student
of Naismith at Kansas, enjoyed great success as coach
at the University of Kentucky. College leagues date back
to the 1920s, and the first national championship tournament,
the National Invitation Tournament (NIT) in New York,
followed in 1938. College basketball was rocked by gambling
scandals from 1948-1951, when dozens of players from top
teams were implicated in game fixing and point-shaving.
Partially spurred by the association of the NIT with many
of the cheaters, the NCAA national tournament surpassed
the NIT in importance. Today, the NCAA tournament it is
rivaled only by the baseball World Series and the Super
Bowl of American football in the American sports psyche.

In the 1920s, there were hundreds of professional basketball
teams in towns and cities all over the United States.
There was little organization to the professional game,
as players jumped from team to team, and teams played
in armories and smoky dance halls. Leagues came and went,
and barnstorming squads such as the New York Rens and
the Original Celtics played up to two hundred games a
year on their national tours.